A new beginning
by Death is an option
Summary: Based on events taken place in the computer game Stronghold I have added some though as you'll notice.
1. Chapter 1

**_Stronghold_**

**_Chapter One_**

**January 4th Year 1353, because I work at a well there is not much news gets around to me, I just sit and watch for fires. But the one thing I did hear was that the Lord Flanders was raising taxes to 124 gold a week. I never really cared for the man but now he was going too far, we live on a small island deserted by the King of France in 1220, we just reinhabited the island 20 years ago and now just starting to become independent. In 1330 we ran out of forest, the High King set too many woodcutter's huts up and they cut down the entire vegetation of the island, I can't completely blame the King though, afterall the woodcutters could have stopped...probably too scared to though, get their bloody heads chopped off if they did. Another thing I never liked, if the work is slack, he'll just fire you, nope, not layoff, fire, you can't just temporarily be laid off or nicely told to disband, he'll send the military out and they burn or slowly break down your building, never did it to me though, nor any other fire watchers, his blasted men are so constantly setting fires that we need to be kept in buisness.**

**Well I'll get back to the story, he raised the taxes, blah blah blah, yes, here we are, he raised taxes and we are just getting indepentent when the forestry industry is completed. So today he built a marketplace, had to, we never have any food due to his stupidity. " Why?" you may ask? Well I think I'll take you back to the very beginning of our settlement, before we even arrived on the island.**

**The year is 1322, everyone has just gathered for an important meeting with the Lord Governor Rodney Flanders 11. Nobody knows why he has called it so urgent but he said men and women with any children at all are strongly advised to come to Trinity Hall for all with a family will surely be killed in the name of the utmost Highest King of Grandular County. So after hearing this extremely threatening news we packed our bags and headed southeast 200 miles to save our already very poor family and not knowing what was going to take place at this meeting. When we arrived in Grandular County immediately knew something big was up, the King had his military all lined along the roads, not 25 feet away from each other, this was an immediate notion that any who did not follow orders would be shot through the gut with an arrow or plunged in the heart with a sword. Now we knew to stay in line and we walked clear to Trinity Hall and took our seats. The meeting did not start for another 3 hours but we knew we would be surely killed if we were to leave and come back later, I never figured that out but I never dared to ask either. So in due time the meeting finally started, everyone was seated and nobody dared to talk, those who did were immediately asked to leave the premises. Now comes the Lord Governor Flanders, he didn't waste anytime ( Like he usually does) and cut straight to the point. This may be long but this is what he said, " Ladies and gentlemen of the Grandular County, thank you all for coming here today. I am not wasting any time tonight because the sooner this is done the better. So here goes, 2 weeks ago I had a meeting with Cory Dampling of Tasco State, he had informed me of an island approximately 3,400 miles from Grandular, now, he told me it was once inhabited, but did not tell me by whom, so I asked for a map and I got it. Ladies and gentlemen, after careful research I realized it, this island was once owned by the High King of France where he and his militia and 1,050 men and women and children lived there for 200 years. Now 100 years ago they abandoned this place and it was never found until just two months ago, a group of explorers were looking for something, no one knows what, but they found this island, so they explored it and drew maps and came back but never told anyone, the only person they told was Cory Dampling, being the snitch he was he told every person he knew, including me, so it is now my desire to get a group of men and women and their families to sail with me to this mysterious island and rebuild it and start a new empire there and no one will ever know! So if any man wishes go on this journey just please come to the front and sign up and we will try and get you a spot on the finest ships we have, space is limited though so do not waste time. Now before I let you go and do that I just want to tell how good this is. It is an island of pure forest, trees everywhere, it's shape would appear to look like a scorpion, it is about 20 miles wide east to west, and 30 miles north to south, there is enough grass for cattle, hops, wheat farms, orchards, everything you ever dreamed of, beautiful country with neverending peace. But however space on this island is limited, so we can only take so many people over. The boats will hold about 700 people all together so hurry. Thank you for your patience, you are dismissed and may now sign up."**

**And that's what he said, pretty good speech, it sounded like a nice place to live, so I signed my family aboard the ship. **

**Three weeks we were on that dreaded sea trip, it seemed like it would never end, but fortunately it did, we finally seen land in sight on the 22nd day, it looked beautiful, lush green forests with deer running all over the place, there wasn't much grass, so getting wheat and hops was going to be hard but I don't like beer anyway. Well as I was just saying, beautiful place, as we got nearer and nearer it seemed like it was a lot bigger than what the Lord Governor said but it turned out not to be after we landed. When we landed there was only one spot about 50 yards long on the whole island, we landed and started right away on the new settlement. We had brought supplies along to build the castle and a couple woocutter's huts and a quarry and men got right to work with the industry.**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Stronghold_**

**_Chapter Two_**

**February 16, 1353, today we are finally getting on track with the new kingdom, we have got the castle up which we named Fort Windsor and we are now building a stone wall. I have not yet found a job, since there isn't a whole lot to choose from because of the low supply of food many people are waiting until we have enough food to feed the workers, but as for now I'm just doing vonlunteer work building the Fort and it's surrounding walls. My family and I are settled into a nice small hovel big enough for 8 people, we only have a family of 5 so it was very spacious, and I am looking for a job. The Governor of our new island settlement has been very gracious to some who didnt have enough to wood to build a hovel and he's holding them in the fort until they can build. We so far are not very happy with the Lord Governor since taxes are raised and we have no food, many people are going around with their pants falling down to there knees or some have been very sick and on the verge of dying. With the news that's going around many are saying the High King of Grandular County sent his son here out of anger threatening to kill him if he didn't leave, and his son brought us here to die with him, that's only because nobody has any faith now, they believe we will neevr have food, well I think they are all wrong and some day we will have food overflowing the granary and have to build a marketplace and sell it there will be too food. **

**Well it's another day, today I found a job, I am going to a well where I just sit all day watching for fires, now, it's been a while since I wrote in this book so let me catch you up. Taxes have been raised, no suprise, that's all that man does, I'm beginning to hate him, taxes taxes taxes, we were all wondering what the gold was going to him for on this little tiny island, well it turns out he wants an army, is he expecting a war or what? Well apparently that was right, there was a war coming all right, but not the kind of war you could expect, see it's been about 5 months and so now we are settled, we have a marketplace, I'll talk about that later, and we have not got enough space for anymore buildings. Well, the King ( As he was anointed 3 months ago) has cleared some land and built an armory, fletchers, poleturners, armouries, everything, so now we wonder what he's gonna do, he built a training ground and the barracks, so today I couldn't count how many men marched past my well by the Fort and over to the barracks. So now we have an army, but the war will not start until later on so now I will talk about the industry. Well, in April, hundreds of woodcutter's huts went up, we were short on land nad wood, so hundreds went up, and hundreds of cutter's went to work, well as they got chopping they got farther and farther away from the forest so the King laid some off and built new ones closer to the wood, he kept doing this, and then on the third week of April, the forest was gone, it sounds hardto believe but there was literally no tree left on the island, this caused one of the biggest rebellions I've ever seen these people have, nearly sixty percent of the industry of this whole island was done, many were laid off and others left stranded with nothing to do until the King got off of his throne and finally realized that the wood industry was done and gone and that men were sitting around doing nothing, so he decided to get tons of pitch and burn them down. So yes you know now there is pitch industry too, not much, only two pitch rigs are going, we have a very small oil marsh so that's all that we could fit on it, so now the stockpile has got pitch also. So the King got some pitch and put it all around the woodcutter's huts and set it on fire, no person on the island was expecting it, we all thought he was preparing for a battle maybe, but then he got an archer to set it on fire, bloody man could haev refused, he's just like the King, don't care about anybody but himself and just obey orders, so he set the pitch on fire and immediately it caught around the huts and burned then all down along with every man surrounding them and they died, and then nearly 100 people walked through the fire and got burned to death too, luckily the pitch around the castle and the walls didnt catch fire either, I was part of puting this fire out just to let you know, it was devastating to watch those people burn but if I had tried to save them I would just burn myself too, so I could just stand by and watch and throw water on the fire, it was horrible, I'll kill him if he ever does that again. **

**Now incase you didn't know I'm not only fire fighter and well watcher but I also help build, not volunteer anymore but I've been assigned a contract and now get paid for it, I always loved carpentry and so now my biggest jobs are just building industrial buildings.**

**It's now the third month of our new settlement and things are going quite well, but taxes are constantly being raised, the granary is always empty so we have to pay extra to buy goods from the marketplace, but all the bad things going on in our community do not add up to the thing the King did last month, the fire was just devastating and some families are now slowly perishing because the father or husband died in that fire and can not pay for food or pay taxes, some have been persecuted by the king, others have been threatened, if I could go back in time I would never have come here, my family is still traumatized by it and they live in fear of what he will do next, we just don't know.**


End file.
